Being great is McLendon's goal

Teresa Varley
Steelers.com

Steve McLendon doesn’t just want to be a good football player, he wants to be great. And he realizes he isn’t going to get to where he wants to be without putting in hard work. It’s one of the reasons he was a fixture in the Steelers weight room all offseason, always working on his strength, always striving to improve, always doing whatever he can to help the team get better.

“I am going towards greatness and there is only one way to get there, through hard work and dedication,” said McLendon. “If we all can accomplish that, we are going to be great together. Sometimes you have to do things yourself to help everyone get better.”

He knows it’s going to take more than just hitting the weights to get there. If he wants to step in to the nose tackle position that Casey Hampton has not just held down since 2001, but has excelled at, he is going to have to do something special. With the opportunity staring him in the face to start after Hampton was not re-signed, he is doing everything in his power to make sure he isn’t able to just handle the job, but excel at it like Hampton did.

READ MORE: http://www.steelers.com/news/article-1/Being-great-is-McLendons-goal/041a47cd-33c2-4dec-a83d-9d0c49b90866

it would be great to not have to worry about the NT position for another 10 years. i doubt he will be able to do what hampton used to be able to do, but then again not too many have

I think McLendon can be successful and could be here for a while. I'm certainly cheering for him.

It would be fantastic if McLendon turns out to be great, but I'll settle for really good. We can't always expect a great player to be replaced immediately with another great player. I don't know if McLendon can be great, but I'm confident that he at least can be really good.

I'd settle for really good.